DigiGlasses: Development of 3D digital glasses for enhancing mobility
Background
The standard of living of visually impaired people is significantly lower than the average. Even in the USA the employment rate of the visually impaired is about only 45 per cent. This ratio is under 40 per cent in UK, and is estimated to be fewer than 30 per cent in Eastern European countries. One of the most important objectives of experts and organisations working for increasing the standard of living of the visually impaired is to increase their mobility to make them able to reach more easily education, work places and social activities. The most significant eye diseases that cause serious vision loss are age-related macular degeneration, cataract, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy. Most prevalent symptoms of visual impairment are blurred vision, decreasing angle of vision, distortion of image, darkened area in the centre of the image, apparent fading of colours, cloudy vision, blind spots, etc. In a lot of cases these symptoms are combined.
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Objective
The DigiGlasses project aims to help this group of visually impaired people by providing them with a glasses-like digital tool to convert the real view of the environment to a sharper, more focused picture by increasing contrast and using edge detection.
Benefits
About five million people in the European Union are visually impaired to the point where eyeglasses are not sufficient to enable them to meet a large portion of their visual needs. That figure represents a clear transnational need for a permanent research and development in the field of low vision aids on a community level. Best practices and research results of medical and technical sciences are needed to contribute to the improvement of standard of living of the visually impaired.
Project Partners
- MFKK
- Diaplous
- Flexibly Optical
- Adaptor
- 明星八卦
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Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project
Professor Tat-Hean Gan - Professional Qualifications CEng. IntPE (UK), Eur Ing BEng (Hons) Electrical and Electronics Engg (Uni of Nottingham) MSc in Advanced Mechanical Engineering (University of Warwick) MBA in International Business (University of Birmingham) PhD in Engineering (University of Warwick) Languages English, Malaysian, Mandarin, Cantonese Professional Bodies Fellow of the British Institute of NDT Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology Tat-Hean Gan has 10 years of experience in Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Condition Monitoring of rotating machineries in various industries namely nuclear, renewable energy (eg Wind, Wave ad Tidal), Oil and Gas, Petrochemical, Construction and Infrastructure, Aerospace and Automotive. He is the Director of BIC, leading activities varying from Research and development to commercialisation in the areas of novel technique development, sensor applications, signal and image processing, numerical modelling and electronics hardware. His experience is also in Collaborative funding (EC FP7 and UK TSB), project management and technology commercialisation.
Related Research Group(s)
明星八卦 Innovation Centre - A world-class research and technology centre that sits between the knowledge base and industry.
Partnering with confidence
Organisations interested in our research can partner with us with confidence backed by an external and independent benchmark: The Knowledge Exchange Framework. Read more.
Project last modified 12/10/2023